This invention relates to a map display apparatus for use in a navigation system for measuring the position of a mobile body and reporting the present position to a user, and more specifically to a bird""s-eye view map display apparatus which provides a map in a more comprehensible way to the user.
A navigation apparatus mounted to a mobile body processes information from a variety of sensors to measure the position of the mobile body and reports the position to a user. This navigation apparatus comprises position measurement means for measuring the absolute position of a mobile body, memory means for storing map data constituted by two-dimensional vector data obtained by projecting points on the ground such as roads and buildings on a plane divided into meshes by universal transverse Mercator projection and character data accompanying the two-dimensional vector data, input means for receiving commands from the user, and display means for reading the necessary vector data from the map mesh stored in the memory means in accordance with the command inputted from the input means and conversion processing the data to display the map on a display. Here, data conversion processing includes movement conversion for changing the display position of the map, reduced scale conversion, such as enlargement and reduction, used for displaying the map in an arbitrary reduced scale and rotation conversion for changing the displaying direction of the map. By means of these processings, a plan view map depicting the ground surface directly overhead by normal projection is displayed on the display.
In navigation apparatuses, according to the prior art, plan view map display which depicts a map by normal projection directly overhead has been employed to display the map. When two points spaced apart from each other are simultaneously displayed, therefore, a reduced scale becomes unavoidably great and detailed information cannot be displayed. One of the means for solving this problem is a bird""s-eye view display system which displays a map when points having a certain height from the ground surface are looked down obliquely from afar on a plane. In order to apply this bird""s-eye view display to the navigation apparatuses, the following problems must be solved.
First, in the case of the bird""s-eye view display which displays a broader range of regions than the plan view map, a reduced scale becomes great at points far from the start point, so that a greater quantity of information is displayed. According to the prior art systems, character strings of those regions in which the reduced scale becomes great are not displayed or the character strings in the proximity of a viewpoint are merely displayed at the upper part. For this reason, fall-off of characters and overlap of character strings are unavoidable, and recognizability of the characters by the user drops.
Secondly, background data and character data are constituted in the map database so that display quality attains the highest level when the plan view map is displayed. Therefore, in the bird""s-eye view map display displaying a broader range of regions, the frequency of the occurrence that the same character strings are displayed at a plurality of positions becomes higher. Since no counter-measure has been taken in the past for the same character string, the same character string is unnecessarily displayed and this unnecessary character string hides the roads and other background data. In consequence, display quality gets deteriorated.
Thirdly, though a route to the destination is displayed in superposition with the map in a different color from those of the background roads, all the route data are displayed with the same line width in the past because the concept of the road width does not exist in the vector data expressing the routes. However, because the map is expressed three-dimensionally in the bird""s-eye view display, the feel of three-dimensional depth will be lost if all the routes are displayed by the same line width.
In the fourth place, in the display of a driving orbit, it has been customary in the prior art to store the position information of driving in a certain distance interval and to display the points representing the driving orbit on the basis of the position information so stored. When the driving orbit is displayed by the method of the prior art system on the bird""s-eye view map, however, the gap of the point strings representing the orbit is enlarged in the proximity of the viewpoint at which the reduced scale becomes small, and the user cannot easily recognize which route he has taken. The gap of the dot strings becomes unnecessarily narrow, on the contrary, at portions away from the viewpoint at which the reduced scale becomes great, and the roads and the character strings as the background information are hidden. Therefore, the user cannot easily recognize the map information, either.
In the fifth place, pattern information, e.g. solid lines and dash lines, used for displaying the vector information such as roads, railways, administrative districts, etc., and pattern information, e.g. check and checkered patterns, used for displaying polygons representing water systems, green zones, etc., are registered to the map data base. When the map containing these pattern information is displayed by bird""s-eye view, the prior art systems execute not only perspective conversion of each apex coordinates constituting the lines and the polygons but also perspective conversion of the patterns for displaying the map. Therefore, the processing time becomes enormously long, and the time required for bird""s-eye map display gets elongated.
In the sixth place, in order to prevent dispersion of the map data displayed near an infinite remote point called a xe2x80x9cvanishing pointxe2x80x9d in the bird""s-eye map display, the display region is limited to the foreground region by a predetermined distance from the vanishing point and artificial background information such as a virtual horizon and sky are displayed at the depth in the prior art system. However, these artificial background information in the prior art systems have fixed patterns or fixed colors and do not match the surrounding conditions.
In the seventh place, when the bird""s-eye view map display and the plan view map display are switched, the user cannot easily discriminate which of them is actually displayed when the number of objects plotted is small. Moreover, the user can operate and change the position of the viewpoint in the bird""s-eye view map display, and the map region actually displayed greatly changes depending on the position of the viewpoint and on the direction of the visual field. In the prior art systems, however, there is no means for providing the information of the position of the viewpoint, etc., even when the position of the viewpoint and the direction of the visual field are changed, and the systems are not easy to handle.
In the eighth place, when the bird""s-eye view map is displayed, the map displaying direction is set in such a manner that the image display direction coincides with the driving direction, as described, for example, in JP-A-2-244188. When the destination is set, the driving direction and the direction of the destination are not always coincident, so that the destination disappears from the screen. Accordingly, there remains the problem that the user cannot recognize the map while always confirming the direction of the destination.
In the conventional bird""s-eye view map display, in the ninth place, even when a map information density is low in a certain specific direction or when a specific direction comprises only information having specific attributes, the display position of the viewpoint, that is, the display position of the present position, does not change on the screen. In other words, there occurs the case where a large quantity of information, which are not much significant, are displayed on the display region having a limited area, and the information cannot be provided efficiently.
To solve the first problem, the present invention uses means for judging whether or not overlap occurs between character strings or symbols, and selecting and displaying character strings or symbols having predetermined attributes when overlap exists, or selecting and displaying character strings or symbols in the proximity of the viewpoint, or replacing the overlapping character strings or symbols by a font size smaller than the recommended font size. The character overlap judgment means uses means for judging that the character strings overlap by using rectangular region information circumscribed with the character strings when the mutual circumscribed rectangular regions overlap, or judges that the character strings overlap by using rectangular region information of rectangles positioned more inside by a predetermined distance from the rectangles circumscribed with the character strings when mutual rectangle regions overlap.
To solve the second problem, the present invention uses means for judging whether or not the same character strings or symbols exist inside the screen displaying a certain bird""s-eye view map, and selecting and displaying character strings in the proximity of the viewpoint when the same character string or symbol exists. It is effective to display both the character strings or symbols if the mutual distance is great even when the same character strings or symbols exist. Accordingly, the present invention uses means for selecting and displaying character strings in the proximity of the viewpoint when the distance between the same character strings or symbols or the distance between them in the bird""s-eye view map display is judged as existing within a predetermined range, and for displaying both of the character strings or the symbols when the distance is judged as existing outside the range.
To solve the third problem, the present invention uses means for displaying routes in the proximity of the viewpoint by thicker lines than routes apart from the viewpoint when the routes are displayed on the bird""s-eye view map. Alternatively, the present invention uses means for dividing the bird""s-eye view map into a plurality of regions and displaying routes by a line width inherent to each region when the routes to be displayed in superposition in these regions are displayed.
To solve the fourth problem, the present invention uses means for obtaining an orbit which supplements the stored orbit information for the driving routes in the proximity of the viewpoint, and displaying the orbit in superposition with the bird""s-eye view map. As to driving orbits away from the viewpoint, on the other hand, the present invention uses means for thinning out the stored orbit information and displaying the orbits so thinned out in superposition on the bird""s-eye view map.
To solve the fifth problem, the present invention uses means for executing perspective conversion the lines constituting the map data and each apex coordinates constituting polygons, and displaying the polygons or the lines by using the patterns used for plan view map display by using the coordinates values after perspective conversion.
To solve the sixth problem, the present invention uses means for limiting display of the map in the foreground regions by a predetermined distance from the vanishing point and changing the colors or patterns of the artificial background such as the horizon and the sky to be displayed at the depth. More concretely, the present invention uses means for changing the colors or the patterns of the artificial background information by a blue color representing the sky when lamps are not lit and by a black or grey color when the lamps are lit, by using signals representing the condition of the car, that is, light turn ON/OFF signal of the car.
To solve the seventh problem, the present invention uses means for causing a map display control portion to switch the bird""s-eye view map and the plan view map in accordance with a user""s request, and causing a menu display portion, which displays a mark in superposition with the map, to receive the change of the display state of the map and to display the mark representing the plan view map in superposition with the map when the map is switched from the bird""s-eye view map to the plan view map. When the map is switched from the plan view map to the bird""s-eye view map, the mark representing the bird""s-eye view map is displayed in superposition with the map. When the user changes the position of the viewpoint during the display of the bird""s-eye view map, the shape of the mark representing the present position is changed and is displayed in superposition with the map.
To solve the eighth problem, the present invention promotes the user to set the destination. After setting of the destination is completed, the direction of the viewpoint is brought into conformity with the direction of the destination from the position of the viewpoint, and the position/direction of the viewpoint and the projection angle are calculated so that the map of predetermined regions is displayed by the bird""s-eye view map. Even when the present position is updated, the processing described above is always executed repeatedly to bring the position of the viewpoint into conformity with the present position and to display the bird""s-eye view map.
To solve the ninth problem, a region inside the bird""s-eye view map, which has a low map information density, and a region constituted by information having only specific attributes are retrieved. When these regions are retrieved, the position of the viewpoint is changed so that the region having a low map information density and the region comprising only the information of the specific attributes do not occupy a large area on the display screen. The bird""s-eye view map is displayed by using the information of the position of the viewpoint and the projection angle so obtained.
When overlap exists between the character strings in the bird""s-eye view map display, the first means displays one of them, or displays the overlapping character strings by changing their size to the smaller fonts.
When the same character strings or symbols exist in the bird""s-eye view map display, the second means selects and displays the character strings closer to the viewpoint.
In the bird""s-eye view map display, the third means so functions as to display the guiding route near the viewpoint by a greater line width than the guide routes existing away from the viewpoint.
In the bird""s-eye view map display, the fourth means so functions as to display the dot strings representing the driving orbit with suitable gaps between the region near the viewpoint and the region far from the viewpoint.
In the bird""s-eye view map display, the fifth means so functions as to speed up the display of pattern lines and polygons in which patterns exist.
In the bird""s-eye view map display, the sixth means so functions as to display the artificial background in different colors or different patterns in accordance with the condition of the car.
In the bird""s-eye view map display, when the bird""s-eye view map and the plan view map are mutually switched, the seventh means so functions as to change the shape of the mark to be displayed in superposition with the map in the direction of the position of the viewpoint and the visual field.
In the bird""s-eye view map display, the ninth means so functions as to reduce the occupying area of the regions having a low map information density or comprising only information of specific attributes.